The Role of Brand Image in Online Advertising

In recent years we’ve seen a serious shift in spending habits. A global pandemic, economic volatility and technological advances have had a huge impact on the way we do business as a digital marketing agency Brisbane wide.

And that’s not just anecdotal. Recent research shows that 67% of people report they shop differently due to COVID-19. That shift is already affecting businesses, and many have turned to online advertising in order to keep up.

The good news is that online advertising (like Google Ads) is still an effective tool for reaching your customers. The bad news is that the recent boom has made the market more competitive than ever. So, what’s the key to success when your customers are being hit with more noise than ever?

Using brand equity to make your advertising stand out.

The way you differentiate your brand can determine your success and failure in online advertising. In an increasingly saturated digital space, how can your business effectively demonstrate the things that make it stand out? Your ads could detail all the benefits and features of your products, but you’d only be doing the same things as your competition. Instead, the solution lies within the brand itself.

Branding has incredible power to influence the values, attitudes and behaviours of your customers. Done right, your brand image can also increase the perceived value of your products and services, which helps you develop a competitive advantage. This type of influence is known as ‘brand equity.’

There are several elements that construct brand equity. But, in an online environment, none of those elements is more important than brand image. Your brand image is the “sum of a customer’s perceptions of a brand,” and how those perceptions impact the decision-making processes (Lee  HYPERLINK “https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi=34f9a0124c3f79abbd85cfcf8118e4f90cfb074f”et al. HYPERLINK “https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi=34f9a0124c3f79abbd85cfcf8118e4f90cfb074f” 2014).

Put simply, a well-crafted brand image allows your business to stand out, and that makes your online advertising far more effective.

How to communicate brand image and build equity.

The relationship between brand image and online advertising varies depending on the advertising platforms we use.

Each platform was built for a specific purpose that was shaped by users’ motivations. For example, platforms like Google Ads were shaped by customer demand for a search engine that returns relevant results. Compare that to social media websites that were shaped by motivations like information sharing, social interaction, entertainment and self-expression.

If you want to effectively communicate your brand image and make your online advertising stand out, you need to understand where these motivations lie. That means there’s no one-size answer to communicating brand image. Your strategy should vary based on the platform, customers and the messages you’re trying to convey.

For instance, Facebook ads often perform best when you produce entertaining and easy-to-consume videos. These sorts of ads effectively communicate brand image because they appeal to the motivations of Facebook users looking for social interaction. In this case, creating a short, fun video that shows off your brand’s personality is far more effective than running text-heavy ads detailing the core features of your product.

Creating value with user-centric ad campaigns, just like AirBnB.

Targeting your ads to customer motivations might seem obvious, but it’s something that continues to escape many advertisers. Of course, the challenge is that it’s difficult, costly and time-consuming to produce a different ad campaign for every platform. Not all businesses have that kind of budget, and it might be unclear as to whether things like fun Reels on Facebook have a meaningful impact on your bottom line.

To that we say yes – there is value in that sort of advertising—lots of value.

A perfect example of this is AirBnb’s ‘Made Possible By Hosts’ campaign. AirBnB leaned heavily into user-generated content, with the campaign featuring guest photographers staying in short-term rentals around the world.

The campaign was described by CEO Brian Chesky as a move away from ‘buying customers’ to ‘education.’ The campaign boosted direct bookings and retention as a result, which helped to deliver the company their most profitable fourth quarter ever. Not only did the campaign improve AirBnB’s bottom line, but it also boosted its brand image along the way. So how was it so successful?

AirBnb understood how their customers perceived their brand. They could see how this impacted their performance, and they devised a campaign to change perceptions on platforms their audience actively uses. The content used was short, simple, cost-effective and perfectly aligned with their audiences. As a result, the campaign was successful, and AirBnB demonstrated a fundamental understanding of the Why, Where and How of communicating brand image.

What determines ‘good’ advertising content in the viral age?

Although AirBnB nailed it with their campaign, there’s no definitive measure as to what is ‘good’ advertising content. What’s good is entirely subjective. When it comes to online advertising, it’s your brand, the platform you’re using, and the customer that defines the quality of your content.

While this has always been true, the effect is even more pronounced today – the more your customers engage with content, the more that content will be shown to others. This is what we call ‘virality.’

Viral content can be a quick route to growth, but improperly communicating the message can have a negative effect on purchase attention. On the other hand, when you nail brand messaging, even the most negative effects can be transformed into a positive (Liu  HYPERLINK “http://article.businessmanagementsciences.com/pdf/JBMS-7-2-3.pdf”& HYPERLINK “http://article.businessmanagementsciences.com/pdf/JBMS-7-2-3.pdf” Wang, 2019).

That’s not to say that you should aim to make every bit of online advertising a viral hit. The obsession with viral content can be a poisoned chalice. A sole piece of viral content is an advertising dopamine dump. The feeling is fast and euphoric, but the low is just as hard and intense. It often leaves brands chasing the dragon and looking for another way to go viral. And, in the process, it’s easy to lose sight of the core elements of your brand.

Using your brand image to create effective online advertising campaigns.

So, the solution lies somewhere between one-off viral success and AirBnB’s campaign. The good news is that you don’t need AirBnB’s marketing budget to make a dent. With a strong brand image, you’ll be able to communicate your message, influence customers and design ad campaigns that stand out.

And there’s no secret to success here – all you have to do is put your brand’s personality first. Customers (especially on social media) love to connect with their favourite companies on a personal level. By developing strong branding and a unique brand personality, you can instantly make your advertising stand out.

The simplest way to do this is to put your personality and values into the brand. It’s your company and you’re passionate about what you do. The more you let that shine through, the easier it is for customers to connect with you, your products and your brand. If you get that right, every little bit of online advertising becomes more effective, which increases returns while minimising the amount you need to spend on your ad campaigns.

Turning your brand image into real value.

Ultimately, in order for a business to advertise effectively in the digital space, you’ll need to develop a strong brand.

Customers make transactions with businesses, but they make investments in brands. Transactions are easily forgotten, but investments carry loyalty and provide lifetime value. By doing the groundwork in building and establishing a brand, it becomes much easier to ensure your marketing activities return a profit. This provides a foundational point that is a more powerful tool than any product, service or advertisement could be on its own.